Divorced Parents’ Children has Higher Risk for Obesity

If you don’t want your child to become obese, you should love your spouse more.

Children who have divorced parents have a higher risk of becoming obese because they find comfort and convenience from junk food, according to new research.

The research found out those children whose parents are divorced have a 60 percent chance of becoming obese or overweight compared to children whose parents are married. The higher rate of obesity among children of divorced parents is more prevalent in boys than in girls.

The research is very comprehensive since it uses two measures of weight, which are the body mass index (BMI) and the other is the waist circumference, which shows the more dangerous fat stored in the stomach. Having more fats stored around the waist can lead to heart diseases and type 2 diabetes. According to the research, children who have divorced parents are 90 percent more likely to have more fats around their mid section.

Another reason why children with divorced parents have a high tendency to be obese is because their parents have no time to cook nutritious and healthy food and just feed them processed foods from stores, which are far less healthy, according to researchers.

But the main reason for the obesity is because the kids will do comfort eating to pacify the emotional trauma caused by the divorce.

It is the breakdown that happens in the marriage that triggers the high possibility of obesity among children.

The study was conducted on 3,166 students who are eight years old coming from 127 schools in Norway. Their waist circumference, weights, and heights were independently measured.

According to the lead author of the research Dr Anna Biehl from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, it is clear that the changes that happen to a child’s life after a divorce has a big and adverse effect on him or her.